Strong internal controls and a fancy tech system aren’t the only way to catch would-be fraudsters.

Yan Dabin, former Director of Transportation for Wushan County in Southwest China, was sentenced to death for accepting bribes totalling $3.2 million. Dabin was in charge of awarding road and bridge construction contracts to competing vendors, and always took his bribes in cash.

Of course, concealing the money became cumbersome, so Dabin stuffed nearly $1.3 million in cardboard boxes into the toilet and bathtub of an apartment he owned. Once the resident below his unit called to complain about water stains on the ceiling, police officers and a maintenance worker discovered the overflowing commode, stuffed with paper bills.

Dabin’s wife was sentenced to three years in prison after she was found guilty of laundering the rest of the money in several other apartments.

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Tags: Apartment, Bribes, Competing vendors, Internal controls, Money laundering